


twin beds

by thefudge



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, Jealousy, Sibling Rivalry, some kind of unresolved tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26140870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: Five and Vanya have a late night chat (season 2).
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 13
Kudos: 190





	twin beds

**Author's Note:**

> this takes place...somewhere during s2? the timeline is a little iffy. anyway, i have been meaning to write a fiveya, and for better or worse, this is my take on them. hope you enjoy!

In his dreams, his sister has the white eyes of glaciers and ash. The barren landscape of apocalypse is carved in her marmoreal face. She passes through the empty streets like a lethal ghost. She picks up her violin from the debris and strums her fingers against the chords. The architecture shifts and the city tumbles between the dulcet notes, unleashing a Lovecraftian horror of half-sawed caryatids and columned circumvolutions and stairways choked by lampposts and windows leading to other windows leading to a pool of dark glass which reflects and multiplies the nightmare. He disappears and reappears inside himself. He throws himself against the syncopated music of terror and comes back just as haunted and helpless. Through it all, Vanya smiles beatifically. She tells him – and he can hear her distinctly, her kind, hesitant voice – she’s going to play a sonata she wrote for the end of the world. It shouldn’t take very long.

When he wakes up – _if_ he ever truly wakes up – he’s still thirteen.

He’s sleeping on a stranger’s couch. Outside, the billboards flicker wearily. A liquor store is closing for the night. Figures in period dress walk out of the fog towards home. He doesn’t know if this is 1960 or 1920 or 1820 or maybe just 20. Maybe the world was always like this. Maybe time is just a music score which always sounds the same, whichever way you play.

He heaves himself up, feeling his true age in the chafing of muscles and bone. The body remembers.

He pulls down a Yellow Pages tome, turns on the lamp and searches for the last name of that woman she mentioned, the one who let her stay on the farm, the one she’s so attached to.

He doesn’t know how he knows she’ll pick up. It’s after 3 AM. It feels like their time.

“Hello?” Vanya answers groggily.

“I was hoping you’d be awake.”

“ _Five_?”

“Have you used your powers recently?”

There’s a pause on the other end. “Five, it’s really late.”

“I had a dream about you. It felt very real. I guess most dreams do,” he reasons. “But the mind sometimes anticipates the future, you know.”

“I …don’t understand what you’re saying and frankly, I don’t think I want to.”

Five scrapes a carpet stain with the point of his shoe. “I’m just calling to make sure you’re all right.”

He can practically hear Vanya thinking.

“…actually, it sounds like you’re making sure I haven’t done anything bad.”

“Have you?”

“Define bad,” she mumbles.

“Vanya. Did you use your powers?”

There’s a petulant edge to her voice now. “And what if I did? They’re a part of me. I don’t ask you why you keep jumping dimensions.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“No. I only – I helped Harlan, that’s all.”

He can tell by the way she skids past certain words that there’s more to it than that, but he will drop it for now.

“How did you know I used my powers anyway?” she asks.

“I told you. I had a dream. More like a feeling, I guess.” 

Vanya snorts.

“What?” he demands.

“Nothing. It’s just that you don’t seem to me like someone who trusts feelings.”

Five frowns. It’s true. But it stings, somehow, when she says it.

“I don’t, but I know my family,” he argues.

“Are we really family?” she wonders, more to herself.

Five clutches the receiver a little too hard. He’s suddenly angry. He wants to tell her, _isn’t this proof that we are?_ _I can feel you even at a distance._

But that sounds too personal and a little crazy. It’s normal for her to doubt their connection, given that she doesn’t remember anything. But sometimes, it feels like she just doesn’t _want_ to remember. And that’s crazy too. Of all his siblings, he doesn’t know why she rattles him the most. Or he does know, but like her, he doesn’t want to remember.

Five exhales. “You’re my sister, whether you like it or not. And I need you to be careful.”

“I’m always careful.”

“No – not always,” he counters. “You’re too strong for your own good.”

“And that bothers you, doesn’t it?” she asks very quietly. “That I’m stronger than you?”

“No. And you’re not stronger than me.”

“You wouldn’t be so worried if I wasn’t.”

Five bites down until his jaw feels like live wire. In her own quiet, unassuming way she can be a real bitch.

“We’re evenly matched.”

Vanya smiles. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

Five hears the dissonant cries of the city outside the window, like the caress of a particularly sharp instrument. The back of his neck prickles.

“Don’t tempt me.”

He shouldn’t have said that. In his interactions with Vanya he has always tried to diffuse the tension, to make sure that he doesn’t poke whatever concealed monsters sleep in the twin beds of their unconscious, because it _would_ be tempting to measure their powers against each other, to finally cut his teeth on someone his own size, to feel that white light of terror on his flesh again, to have that violin bow cut his throat. He touches his throat. How would that feel?

Something Reginald understood from the beginning about them and which Five has only recently come to realize is that they’re not dangerous kids because of their powers. They’re dangerous because they let those powers consume them. Order and discipline are required to prevent the hedonism of gods.

“You know where to find me,” Vanya says softly, coloring his thoughts in white.

Five thinks about running through cornfields. He thinks about water towers crashing in the distance and headlights following him in the dark. He parts his lips against the receiver.

He hears commotion on the other end.

“No – I’m okay, it’s just a wrong number – go back to bed – yeah, I’m coming in a minute.”

Five hears the tenderness in Vanya’s voice, a different kind of softness. Not miserable and guarded, but loving and even a little playful.

“Was that your lady friend?” he asks, sullen. He doesn’t care for interruptions.

“Yeah, that was Sissy. I have to go.”

He swallows. “Are you sleeping with her?”

Vanya hesitates. “We’re sharing a bed.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Why do you care? You’re just a child.”

Yeah, she can be a real bitch when she wants to. 

“I care because when she finds out about who you really are there will be consequences.”

“Or maybe she will accept me for who I am,” she argues. “People do that sometimes. It’s not always violence and betrayal. We don’t all have to live like you.”

Five thinks, _a minute ago you were telling me we should fight. Maybe I want to fight._ _Maybe that’s what you really want too._

But Vanya doesn’t allow him this window.

“I’m sorry,” she corrects herself. “I – that was harsh. You didn’t deserve it. You’re just doing your best.”

But Five reads between the lines and it really fucking smarts. _Your best is not enough for me._

Or maybe he’s just imagining the cruelty. Maybe his sister is just being kind. She’s always like that.

“Go back to sleep, Five,” she adds softly. “I’ll go back to Sissy. And we’ll both dream of nothing tonight, okay?”

He nods, though she can’t see him.

She hangs up. He puts the phone down. He thinks about her sliding into bed next to the woman she loves and putting her arms around her and kissing the crook of her shoulder.

He falls asleep at the desk, head in his arms. He falls asleep thinking of her, but Vanya’s promise is as good as gold.

There’s only a vast emptiness and an absence of music that still sounds melodious in the twin beds of their unconscious.


End file.
